One should never become devoted to a teacher, any more than one should become devoted to a statue of a god. There is only one thing to be devoted to, and that is your mind.

I would define the proper use of power as something that creates happiness for yourself and others.

Do not feel that you are destined not to make that final liberation in this life. This is egotism in a reverse form. Don't be concerned one way or the other.

A better lifetime comes from not some karmic scale but from inner knowledge. Inner knowledge makes you happy. In other words, it is not as if someone is checking!

If you are smart, you never retire. You may retire from that job you have had for many years, but you will pick up another career for yourself of some type.

You should be drawing awareness from a deeper part of your being. Your deeper mind has everything already. It knows everything already. It has all the answers.

In poetry, and in my study in graduate school, I was drawn to a particular poet, Theodore Roethke. I did a dissertation on "The Evolution of Matter and Spirit in the Poetry of Theodore Roethke" for my Ph.D.